Terracotta Krater, Ancient Greece

The Dipylon Krater can be found in the Dipylon cemetery in Athens. It was made in c. 750-735 B.C.E. The vase is geometric and the shape of it is a Krater. Krater is a type of Greek clay vessel. It was made for a grave site. It sits on top of the grave and the bottom of the vase is open for liquid to be poured down as an offering for the deceased. The Dipylon Krater’s importance is the designs on the vase. It comes from an early period in Greece, the style is associated with geometric. It is covered with geometric motifs, it has diamonds, triangles, black lines, and meanders. There are also friezes, those are pictorial bands, the pictures are funerary. On the top layer it shows a dead figure on a bier, that is a stand for the deceased. They are being mourned. There are female figures on each side of the bier, their arms are raised as a sign of grief. As it shows a scene of a funeral the wife and child mourn at the bottom of the deceased. On the band below shows military in nature, there are soldiers, chariots, horses, and the soldiers are holding ancient Greece shields. The bodies of the soldiers morph the shape of the shield. The whole vase has a flat pictorial sense, there is no depth. To start with the background of how the base is made, it is made with slip; that is very fine particles of clay mixed with liquid to be painted onto the vase. Since the vase was made so long ago, they had no kilns to finish the vases, so they use slipwere in place of it, to finish by being turned in on a pottery wheel. 


 Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Terracotta Krater," in Smarthistory, April 6, 2017, accessed September 9, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/met-krater/.

Comments

  1. makaylaSeptember 12, 2020 at 10:54 PM

    The vases shape is very creative, along with the slip. The tube for offering is a little odd considering what could they possibly be giving a deceased person? The color is very muted and doesn't distract from the original notion of reuniting with loved ones and being able to "speak" with them.

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